Here is a quote from Googles own Trademark Complaint Procedure....

"When we receive a complaint from a trademark owner, we will only investigate whether the advertisements at issue are using the trademarked term in ad text . If they are, we will require the advertiser to remove the trademarked term from the text of the ad and prevent the advertiser from using the trademarked term in ad text in the future. Please note that we will not disable keywords associated with trademark usage. In addition, please note that any such investigation will only affect ads served on or by Google. " (entire page is here http://www.google.com/tm_complaint.html )

I have had many KEYWORDS disabled because they "violated their Tradmark policy" "example ebay, auto trader, walmart". The policy states that they "WILL NOT disable keywords associated with trademark usage". I have asked Google about this and got a response telling me that their policy is not fully implemented yet. They have also told me that they are no longer taking new complaints. This means that anyone who has already had certain keywords blocked are still having those keywords blocked, yet no one else can submit keywords for blocking.

ALSO... Googles own policy tells you the needed information if you are placing a complaint about trademark infringment. It says that you must include the offending ads URL in your complaint. I have had keywords blocked within a few minutes of starting them. I know that the companies that I was 'offending' did not specifically request that they stop my ad. I even had Google tell me that the companies have submitted a "blanket complaint". No where in the policy does it state that you can place a blanket complaint to block the usage of your key words.

Any thoughts on this? Should I stop crying about it? It just doesnt seem fair to me.

What do you think?

Bruce

__________________
Bruce McClellan
Faster Digital
www.FasterDigital.com
Bruce@FasterDigital.com

I am not fully up to speed on this issue, but Google are subject to several law suits at the moment from company's whose name was used as a keyword for Adwords by another company.

I guess the dust has not yet settle and Google's policy is "evolving" - I assume the written poilcy on Google's site may be somewhat dated and they haven't yet changed it as the "goal posts keep moving"

CBP